Barbara Cohen received a PhD in genetics from Munich University under Herbert Jaeckle in 1993. Her thesis project, carried out at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, examined limb development in Drosophila.
She was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow with Thomas Graf at the European
Molecular Biology Laboratory before joining the editorial staff of
Nature in London in 1994. At Nature, she was responsible for peer review
and publication of manuscripts in developmental biology, cancer,
genetics, and plant science. In 1997, Barbara moved to New York and
became editor of Nature Genetics. After three years at the helm of that
journal, she moved to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, an
international not-for-profit organization that conducts basic and
clinical cancer research, to head the office of communication. Missing
the world of science publishing, Barbara moved in 2001 to the Journal of
Clinical Inve stigation, where s he was the ex ecutive editor. In 2003,
Barbara joined the Public Library of Science. She initially worked on
PLoS Biology, the first PLoS journal launched. Having developed a strong
interest in medical research over the years, Barbara spearheaded the
development of PLoS Medicine and is now one of four senior editors
working on that journal.